FC6: First impressions and problems

[Deore]

Hi,

here some feedback and questions concerning FC6. Let's see if any of you had the same issues or can help with some suggestions:

First my hardware:
Laptop is Acer Travelmate 291LCi
Centrino @ 1,4 GHz
512 RAM
Intel Graphics Card (i815)
Intel PRO/Wireless (ipw2100)
Battery: even though the laptop is an antique, with FC5 I could use it for 4.5 hours on battery

1. Install:
- anaconda ran in just a portion of my screen - not fullscreen, just the top-left corner, around 3/4 of the display
- anaconda went really slow through the last stage of the installation. Some packages (big only several MB) were installed for like 5-6 minutes each with no feedback to the user as to what is being done at the moment. That made me think it went looping and I had to reinstall. Fortunately after some waiting it went on to the end.

2. First touch:
- great, I am really impressed
- desktop effects work really well

3. Wireless
- load of ipw2100 module went ok but it recognized no device. Reason: missing firmware. I copied the .fw files in /lib/firmware and then it went smooth

4. Power management
- cpuspeed does not work!!! It cannot load acpi-cpufreq.ko with message "No such device". dmesg gives no further information. Result: laptop battery max 2.5 hours @ fully charged. How can I repair this?

5. Suspend / Hibernate
- suspend does not work. Laptop goes to sleep fine but wakes up to a distorted screen with no action (mouse, kbd) possible. Only restart
- I am afraid to test hibernate as I have no rescue cd right now.

I suppose issues 4. and 5. will be resolved once I recompile the kernel but right now I do not have the time. It is a pitty that these basic things didn't work out of the box - well at least not for me, but that will be ironed out I suppose.

I am really interested in solving at least the cpuspeed issue right now so if you have any suggestions apart from recompiling the kernel - I will be glad to hear them.

Thanks and have fun with FC6, it looks like a great release!

[carlsan]

I think issue 5 depends on issue 2. That means: Turn off desktop effects and make sure you have a
# Load "dri"
in your xorg.conf (not loading dri).
My upgrade from FC5 to FC6 via yum went fine, suspend works without problems (Lifebook S7010). The step from FC5 to FC6 feels much better than from FC4 to FC5.

[Dead1nside]

I've also got Suspend/Resume issues on my Thinkpad, one shouldn't have to always turn off desktop effects before a suspend.

[Insomniac20k]

I had the exact same experience with installation but overall I'm impressed. Haven't tried sleep/hibernate yet though. This install got my hardware much better than FC5.

I have not gotten around to installing the wireless or many of the codecs though.

I have the iwp2200 card. Hopefully it won't be too hard.

[Deore]

Hibernate works. I tested it today.
But still, the more importand problem - cpuspeed. Does anyone else have the same problem or is it something wrong with my installation? I will eventually recompile the kernel tonight and see if this will help in a way. But regarding my current config the acpi support is already compiled in the kernel and still cpuspeed doesn't detect it and tries to load the acpi-cpufreq module which then again fails...

[Dead1nside]

FC6 can't dynamically change my CPU frequency anymore. IF that's what you mean.

[carlsan]

Insomniac20k:
iwp2200 runs without any problems if firmware is installed (look at http://atrpms.net/dist/common/ipw2200-firmware/ ).
Deore:
Here is my cpuspeed.conf (works for me with a 1.7 GHz Centrino):
VMAJOR=1
VMINOR=1
DRIVER="centrino"
OPTS="$OPTS -n"
OPTS="$OPTS -a /proc/acpi/ac_adapter/*/state"

[egoh]

Same problem here with cpuspeed (http://forums.fedoraforum.org/forum/...d.php?t=128448)

I tried carlsan's config file (I have a 1.5 Centrino) but no luck. It's also not working on my desktop a AMD 64 x2 (using the normal i386 install, not 64 bit).

Any thoughts?

Thanks!

[Deore]

Carlsan, where do you have that "centrino" driver from? I have only acpi-cpufreq and powernow-k6 modules. Did you compile it and if yes where to get the source?
I tried to recompile the kernel using an old and slightly modded 2.6.16 config - no luck on the cpuspeed thing (although some different error) + I lost my desktop effects. I suppose I compiled the wrong graphics driver, which is fixable. I am pretty sure the default kernel config has something wrong about centrinos but I hate it to have to battle with the config as I have so little time right now. It would be nice to get a fix for this as it really sucks for laptop users.

[carlsan]

Shame on me! My cpuspeed isn't runnning, but cpuscaling works!
[root@localhost ~]# cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 13
model name : Intel(R) Pentium(R) M processor 1.70GHz
stepping : 6
cpu MHz : 600.000
cache size : 2048 KB
fdiv_bug : no
hlt_bug : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 2
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr mce cx8 mtrr pge mca cmov pat clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss tm pbe up est tm2
bogomips : 1201.16
[root@localhost ~]# cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_driver
centrino
[root@localhost ~]# cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/cpuinfo_min_freq
600000
[root@localhost ~]# cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/cpuinfo_max_freq
1700000
The gnome frequency scaling monitor works. My kernel: 2.6.18-1.2798.fc6-i686
Maybe the problem is solved in the parallel thread.

[Deore]

Aha, so *that* should do it - just install the i686 kernel... I am pretty sure I have i586. I will try that once I get home. I have no use for xen on a laptop anyway...
Thanks for your replies, I will post once more after I try out the i686.

[3006828]

would perhaps the new fc6 kernal npow be paying attention to things otherwise haven to be disabled in the bios regarding power management?

really have no idea what im talking but it sorta makes sence to me :P

[Stone Dragon]

Just one more point, which was buggy here:
If you select "extras" in anaconde while installing fc6, anaconda will crash. No big deal, just do not select it, and do it later...

And as addition to cpuspeed issue: with intel core 2 duo, the acpi_cpufreq module gets not loaded (error message) and i see no cpufreq change

[Deore]

Sooo, the kernel reinstall worked and solved my frequency scaling issue. Although I had to force the installation of the kernel and the kernel-devel as rpm thought it wouldn't update anything.
Bad stuff is that it broke my ieee80211_* modules as the version magic didn't match anymore. But I downloaded the ieee80211-1.2.15.tgz from http://ieee80211.sf.net and recompiled it with the new headers and it worked again.
I haven't really tested it yet but I have the feeling that with the cpu frequency scaling now the battery time remaining is not being calculated at all (or really slow). I will see if that is really the case tomorrow.

@carlsan: what is "gnome frequency scaling monitor"? I am new to gnome. Where do I find that?

@Stone Dragon: I actually selected the extras repo in the install and it did't crash. It asked me for IP configuration and went normally on. Maybe you had no active ethernet device which could be used?

[carlsan]

@carlsan: what is "gnome frequency scaling monitor"? I am new to gnome. Where do I find that?

Right click on the Gnome Panel (the bar on top/button at your desktop), select "add to panel..." and search for CPU Frequency Scaling Monitor. It shows you the current cpuspeed and you can change it manually if you want to.